Strategies to Develop your Writing

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Strategies to Develop your Writing

• Íde OSullivan
• Shannon Consortium Regional Writing Centre

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Academic-writing workshops

• Strategies to develop your writing
• Analysing the assignment title and developing a
  plan
• Developing an effective thesis statement. Methods
  of development and organisation of ideas
• Using evidence to support your argument
• Tuesday, 16-17, CG-054

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Writing support Drop-ins for students

• Visit our website (www.ul.ie/rwc) to check out
  our tutors and make an appointment.
• Drop-in to the Writing Centre, C1-065
• Mon 2.30 4.30 pm
• Tues 10 - 12 2 4.30 pm
• Wed 10 - 12 2 5 pm
• Thurs 10 - 12 2 5 pm
• Fri 10 - 12

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Difficulties associated with writing

• Anxiety and fear of writing
• Lack of confidence and motivation
• Cracking the codes of academic writing
• Getting started
• Lack of guidance, practice and feedback
• Misconceptions of writing
• Good writing skills are innate X
• Think first, then write X

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Cracking the codes

• Analysing the genre/text and modelling
• Generate a list of
• The most important features of academic writing
• Criteria to make your writing more effective
• The important conventions in your discipline
• What is/is not acceptable in your discipline
• Journal guidelines for contributors

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Discipline-specific conventions

• What organisational features/patterns are in
  evidence?
• How are arguments and counterarguments presented
  and structured?
• What types of evidence are important in this
  discipline?
• What stylistic features are prominent?
• Is the text cohesive? How does the author achieve
  such cohesion?
• What kind(s) of persuasive devises does the
  author employ?
• Are there noticeable features that can be
  transferred to other disciplines?

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Getting started

• Writing is a process
• Create time and space for writing
• Freewriting
• Keep writing non-stop for 5 minutes
• Write in sentences
• Do not edit or censor your writing
• Prompt
• How I go about writing
• How do you feel?
• Other prompts
• The aim of this assignment

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Dialogue about writing

• Peer-review
• Generative writing
• The writing sandwich (Murray, 200585)
  writing, talking, writing
• Writing buddies (Murray and Moore, 2006102)
• Engaging in critiques of one anothers work
  allows you to become effective critics of your
  own work.

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Strategies that work for you

• Writing is a personal process
• Learning diary (Moore and Murphy, 200561)
• Process journal (Elbow and Belanoff, 200319)
• When do you feel most/least motivated to write?
• What strategies have/have not worked in the past?

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Strategies that work for you

• Write a little bit every day (Moore and Murphy,
  2005117)
• we learn to write through writing (Hyland,
  200281)
• Writing can be a positive experience
• Get stuck in

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Works cited

• Elbow, P. (1998) Writing without Teachers (2nd
  edition). New York Oxford University Press.
• Elbow, P. and Belanoff, P. (2003) Being a Writer
  A Community of Writers Revisited. New York
  McGraw-Hill.
• Hyland, K. (2002) Teaching and Researching
  Writing. London Pearson Education Ltd.
• Moore, S. and Murphy, M. (2005) How to be a
  Student 100 Great Ideas and Practical Hints for
  Students Everywhere. UK Open University Press.
• Murray, R. (2005) Writing for Academic Journals.
  UK Open University Press.
• Murray, R. and Moore, S. (2006) The Handbook of
  Academic Writing A Fresh Approach. UK Open
  University Press.